Monkey Business is now OG, a new organization owned by the players

Monkey Business have officially launched OG, a new brand created by the players, in collaboration with a small group of industry professionals and HitBox.tv. The new organization will be guided by the need for transparency in the decision-making process, balanced with increased attention to the players’ rights.

Monkey Business have announced their new brand, OG, through their social media channels.

“Today we’re officially launching OG. We’re doing something new and want you all to know why:

In the beginning it was just about playing Dota 2, there wasn’t much to worry about. Except IceFrog. When you got recruited to join a team years ago, you might have had some flights and hotels paid for, or won a mouse. Nowadays, you can commit yourself to the game full-time without worrying about next month’s rent. But you also get told what to do, who to promote and what you’re worth.

This never made much sense to us. So we started talking to people. Sports lawyers, sports agents. In search of some inspiration.

It turns out that in esports it’s standard for the best orgs to own the rights to the players they contract. There’s so little transparency, if any, between the players and the organization. Players are often never consulted on what brands they will be promoting. They’re never included in decision making.

This is why we’re launching OG.

All the players at OG will be contracted to the team but will retain their own rights. The best example we were given was ‘Messi can work with Adidas on his own range of shoes but Barcelona FC is sponsored by Nike’. Esports isn’t there yet but it’s because players can’t do this with how all of the team org’s are set up.

Oh, and finding a founding partner who believed in the idea and the brand. Hard.

N0tail and Fly took on the responsibility of grooming the team and leading negotiations for whom we’d trust to make this work. We talked to a lot of people. We finally agreed on a small group of people who we trust to turn Monkey Business into.. well, business. That led us to Hitbox.

We all want to have more control over the content we put out. We love streaming and see it as by far one of the most important ways for us to kick back with our fans and soak up the DOTA2 universe. The guys at Hitbox believe in making sure players are on equal footing with the organization; they will continue to guide, sponsor, and help us every step of the way.They’ve been incredible to work with in getting us here. Go check out Hitbox.tv, register and prepare your bodies for our streams.”

According to the release, the team will start bootcamping in preparation for the Frankfurt Major.

We’ll be bootcamping in Germany next week all the way till the Frankfurt Major. We will be handing out a bunch of Limited First edition jerseys to give away to the craziest fans at the venue.

OG will keep their fans up to date with their evolution through Twitter and Facebook and are planning to put up an official website at the end of next month.

DotaBlast reported the first details about the team’s new brand, yesterday.

After The International 5, Johan “BigDaddy” Sundstein rejoined forces with longtime former teammate and friend, Tal “Fly”Aizik. The duo started playing alongside David “MoonMeander” Tan, Andreas “Cr1t-“ Franck Nielsen, and Amer “Miracle-“Barqawi, on a new team called Monkey Business.

One of the steadiest teams to come down the pike in the new season, Monkey Business have had a strong presence in the Dota scene ever since their inception. The squad has recently placed 3rd-4th at the MLG World Finals and have secured the top Frankfurt Major spot in the European qualifiers.